Knife blocks for storing cutlery typically consist of a solid block of material with a number of parallel slots that hold the knife blades. The handles stick up, which leaves the knives exposed for small children to grab and potentially hurt themselves. This invention is a knife block that can be locked to safeguard knives and other sharp objects (e.g., kitchen shears) from small children. In addition, this invention uses a locking mechanism that does not require any alterations to the knives, a drawback of other lockable knife blocks. Finally, this knife block has few parts, which makes it easy to manufacture.